Something interesting happened recently. Two of our clients, operating in completely different industries, told us that a new customer had found their business after asking ChatGPT for a recommendation.
In one case, someone was looking for the best dietitian in their area. In the other, they were looking for a swimming school. Different businesses and different customer needs, but the same journey: rather than finding the business through one of the more familiar routes, such as Google, social media or word of mouth, they asked AI who it would recommend.
As marketers, that caught our attention. Not because we think businesses need to abandon everything they know about digital marketing and start chasing the latest AI optimisation trend, but because it made us look at the digital ecosystems we’re already building for our clients through a slightly different lens.
AI is adding another layer to online discovery
People have always found businesses in different ways. They ask friends for recommendations, search on Google, discover businesses through social media, notice advertising, read reviews and visit websites before deciding who to contact.
AI is adding another route to that journey.
What’s particularly interesting is the way people can ask for what they need. A traditional Google search might be something like “physiotherapist near me”, “digital marketing agency Johannesburg” or “dietitian Fourways”. Conversational AI allows people to provide more context, similar to how they might when asking another person for a recommendation.
They can explain the problem they’re trying to solve, where they are, what they’re looking for in a provider and what matters to them when making a decision. The commercial intent hasn’t necessarily changed. The person still has a need, they’re still looking for a business that can meet it and they’re still deciding who they can trust. AI simply gives them another way to ask the question and potentially arrive at the businesses they consider.
For marketers and business owners, that raises an interesting question: what information exists online to help inform that recommendation?
Being visible isn’t the same as being understood
A business can have an active social media presence, a website, a Google Business Profile, advertising campaigns and years’ worth of content and still be surprisingly difficult to understand. Being present everywhere doesn’t automatically create a clear picture of the business.
This is something we encounter regularly. When individual tactics operate independently, they may generate activity and visibility, but they don’t necessarily help someone understand what the business stands for, who it serves, how it works and why it is different.
That distinction becomes particularly interesting in the context of AI discovery. When someone asks an AI system for a recommendation, that recommendation can only be as informed as the information it has available to work with. The quality, clarity and consistency of a business’s wider digital footprint therefore become increasingly relevant.
What does your digital footprint actually say about your business?
A lot of what we do across our clients’ accounts is about building clear, connected information that helps people, search engines and, increasingly, AI make sense of a business.
Take one of the physiotherapy practices we work with. We’re not simply putting out posts that say, “Need a physio? Book today!” We’re intentionally building an interconnected body of content that creates a fuller picture of who the practice is, what they believe and how they work.
We explain how they assess patients, how they approach treatment, the conditions they treat, how clinical reasoning informs their care, what their philosophy means in practice, who their clinicians are, where their practices are, what patients can expect and the expertise that exists across the organisation.
Some of that information lives on the website. Some become educational articles. Some is communicated through social media, search content, team stories or Google. Each piece has its own purpose and audience, but together they build context around the same business.
That distinction matters. The goal isn’t simply to create more content. It’s to create useful information that contributes to a coherent picture of the business.
This isn’t a new marketing strategy
The growing conversation around AI discovery comes with a growing collection of terminology, optimisation techniques and promises about how businesses can appear in AI-generated answers. Some of those developments are worth paying attention to, and the role AI plays in discovery will almost certainly continue to evolve.
But there is a risk in treating AI as another isolated marketing tactic that businesses need to bolt onto everything else.
Brand positioning, SEO, content strategy, website development, Google presence and social media have always worked best when they aren’t operating in silos. Positioning establishes what the business wants to be known for. A website gives that positioning depth and structure. SEO helps relevant information become discoverable. Content demonstrates knowledge and answers real customer questions. Social media reinforces expertise, personality and relevance. Local search connects the business with the people and places it serves.
They perform different jobs, but they’re contributing to the same digital footprint. When those elements reinforce one another, clarity compounds. When they don’t, businesses can end up producing an enormous amount of marketing without creating a particularly clear understanding of who they are.
Don’t create content for AI
The emergence of AI as another discovery route doesn’t mean every blog needs to be rewritten for ChatGPT or that businesses should suddenly produce hundreds of articles in an attempt to appear in AI recommendations. Chasing a new algorithm without understanding the strategic purpose behind the work risks creating exactly the kind of disconnected marketing businesses should be moving away from.
Instead, AI discovery gives us another reason to ask some very familiar questions. Is it immediately clear what your business does and who it serves? Does your website answer the questions customers genuinely ask when they’re considering you? Is your expertise visible beyond broad claims about being experienced or providing great service? Do your different digital channels reinforce the same positioning? Is information about your services, people and locations accurate and consistent? And does the content you’re creating add to people’s understanding of your business, or simply add to the volume of content online?
Those questions aren’t really about AI. They’re questions about whether your marketing ecosystem is doing its job.
Build a business that can be understood
We don’t know exactly what role AI will ultimately play in the way people discover and evaluate businesses. What we do know is that customers now have another route available to them. AI can sit alongside search engines, social media, websites, reviews, directories and word of mouth as another potential connection between a customer’s need and the businesses they consider.
For businesses, the opportunity isn’t necessarily to create another standalone strategy for another channel. But rather to ensure the ecosystem they’re already building tells a clear and credible story wherever someone encounters it.
AI discovery hasn’t changed the fundamentals of good marketing. It has made clarity, consistency and connected digital ecosystems even more important. As the ways people search, discover and make decisions continue to evolve, businesses don’t need to chase every new platform or optimise themselves for every new technology. They need to build a digital presence that clearly communicates who they are, what they do, what they know and why that matters.
Because whether someone finds your business through Google, social media, your website, word of mouth or a conversation with ChatGPT, being visible is only part of the job. Being understood is what gives people a reason to choose you.
Thinking differently about your digital marketing?
If this article has made you think differently about how your marketing works together, we’d love to continue the conversation. Get in touch with The Creative Distillery, or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more insights on building clearer, more connected and more effective digital marketing.
